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17 October 2011

Lies and Lying (updated)

George Rebane

In this information age lies abound more than ever. And the art of lying involves understanding the three major types of lies. This piece is an addition to the RR lexicon that may be of use in future discussions. The sequel here is an edited version of a little essay on lying first delivered in 1993 as part of a university lecture on critical thinking.

The term ‘lie’ has given trouble to semanticists and parents alike because it embraces such concepts as truth, intention, belief, and the roles of the parties involved. If we look at lying in more scientific terms, we see that it can be cast as a communication event that comprises of a message, its sender, and its receiver. We offer the following definition.

A Lie is a Message, the truth value of which is known to be ‘False’ by its Sender, who at the same time anticipates that the Receiver will assign ‘True’ to its truth value. As such, a Lie is simply a Message intended to deceive.

This somewhat technical definition is nevertheless sufficiently direct, comprehensive, and operational so as to support a useful analysis of lying - a most popular and ingrained human activity. The definition obviates such indeterminables as utilities and morality, and avoids the infinite regressions of “he knew that she knew that he knew…” that often cloud any discussion of lying. When the Lie results in consequential injury to the Receiver or third parties, those so injured are called Victims of the lie. From the definition - and our own experience - it is clear that lies can also prove of benefit to the Receiver and, indeed, in the large can conceivably have a neutral effect on all concerned.

A Liar then is one who sends such a Message - the lie - in any format that can be understood by the Receiver. This is an important point: lies need not be conveyed by a natural language in either its spoken or written (lexicographic) form. Humans communicate through a myriad of channels using a rich catalog of message formats that include pregnant silences, facial expressions, innuendo, and time delayed signs that correlate to a mutually interpreted event. Such a communication involves the transmission of information based on the presumed shared prior knowledge of the communicants.

Individuals in all known societies operate under an unwritten social contract which does not formally sanction lying. In other words no social order bases its operation on the practice of deceit. Indeed, in those same societies, being labeled as a liar is a stigma that works to the detriment of one so labeled. Many societies have codified certain aspects of lying into their laws and explicit codes of behavior ('What did he know, and when did he know it?'). It is these ‘aspects of lying’ which will interest us in the following.

The little vignette below illustrates the definition of 'lie' and catalogs three of the most popular types from a potentially very large taxonomy of lies.

§§§§§§

Work colleagues Sam and Joe, currently vying for the same promotion, decide to see the Grand Canyon on the way back from a business trip. While taking photographs at the edge of a remote part of the canyon rim Sam asks Joe to snap a picture of him. Joe turns around and with his back to the rim becomes absorbed framing Sam whose image overfills the viewfinder.

Scenario 1: Sam sees an opportunity and instructs Joe, “Back up Joe, you’ve got plenty of room.” Trustingly Joe does and the canyon echoes with his scream as he plummets backward into the abyss.

Scenario 2: Concentrating on the camera Joe says, “I think I need to back up to get this to look good.” as he walks backward toward the precipice. Joe hears Sam say “No problem.” just before he loses his footing and disappears over the edge.

Scenario 3: Concentrating on the camera, Joe unthinkingly backs up to in¬clude more scenery in the picture of Sam. Sam sees the impending disaster, but continues posing silently as Sam disappears over the edge.

§§§§§§

These scenarios illustrate the three most common types of lies we tell in order to gain an advantage. Depending on our values and mores, each subsequent one is held less onerous.

Type 1 - Explicit Lie: This is a known untruth explicitly uttered to elicit a behavior from the Victim which benefits the Liar along with (in this case) possible injury to the Victim. Scenario 1 illustrates this type of lie in which the Victim believed that the Liar would not actively seek to hurt him as part of their established social contract.

Type 2 - Opportunistic Lie: This is a more subtle untruth in which the Liar takes advantage of a serendipitous opportunity to gain advantage. In this type of lie the Victim instigates a behavior (activity), the liability of which he is not aware, while trusting that the social contract would compel the would-be liar to warn the would-be victim of a known (to the Liar) potential liability. Scenario 2 illustrates this type of lie since the Victim acted with the firm belief that, in specifically making known his course of action, the Liar would in turn warn him of any impending danger known to the Liar.

Type 3 - Veiled Opportunistic Lie: This is perhaps the most subtle lie that we tell each other and do so most frequently. Here the Victim again instigates a behavior harmful to himself and of potential benefit to the Liar, but in this case the Victim makes no overt statement of his intention. Instead the Victim properly assumes that the Liar is a component of the nurturing and sustaining environment as part of their implied social contract, and would therefore naturally warn him of any apparent danger. The Liar is fully aware of the Victim’s erroneous assumption and uses it to his advantage. Scenario 3 gives an example of this type of lie.

This short catalog is by no means exhaustive. We humans, and some animals, draw frequently from a rich catalog of lie types to suit our needs. The intent here has been to present a definition that can be used to illuminate the acts of lying and serve as a useful tool in their analysis.

As a final example of the utility of the offered definition consider the following scenario of a lie that is intended to harm its victim, but nevertheless will not cause the Liar to suffer any reprimand even if the incident were recorded meticulously by hidden microphone and camera – a lie known only to the Liar and God.

Little Larry who doesn’t like Bobby is asked by the latter what is the answer to 2+2. Larry, who is no great arithmetic genius, believes the answer to be five, but deliberately responds to Bobby with “four”, unwittingly the correct answer. The more limited dictionary definitions of ‘lie’ will not pick up this clumsy yet clear attempt to deceive the Receiver and make him a Victim. The operational definition given above has no problem with this seemingly difficult case since the Message ‘four’ was believed by the Sender to be FALSE, making him the Liar who also anticipated that the Receiver would take it as TRUE. The truth value of the message from a larger perspective is irrelevant to the communication and its correct ascription as a lie.

Finally, another view of reality management, truth modification, or lying

1. The spots of the leopard are a lie to its prey - “I am not here.”2. Reaching its highest forms in the human, throughout nature the common denominator of survival is continual lying in one form or another.3. In any larger society, lying is practiced from within and without for the “good (survival) of the society” as a super-organism.4. Is there an “internal lying” process inside an individual for the sake of its survival - e.g. in the bicameral mind taught by Julian Jaynes (q.v.) - which requires another ‘intender’ to reside in the same body?

[update] Today we find corroboration of the points made above about the state being the prime promulgator of lies. Commenter MikeyM (1124am below) gives us the heads-up on the latest outrage the scumbags in the White House are pulling on America. Please read here.

It involves too many factors, all are important, on which to expand in this post. But the impact of such lies hidden from the public is clear to any but the most dimwitted ideologues of the collective bent. I hope that Russ Steele (here) and Anthony Watts run the distance with this.

Here is an example how lies are used to bring down the US. We are on the cusp of our own destruction for failing to challenge these lies at every opportunity. We have elected the useful idiots who can lie with a straight face and go unchallenged. We are our own worst enemy.

Good connection Walt. It seems that we're headed for a society where all forms of lying to each other will be tolerated (promoted?) except a citizen lying to an agency of the government - that will receive draconian attention as the state continues to purge individual liberties from the system.

"The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has learned of a UN plan recently put in place to hide official correspondence on non-governmental communication accounts, which a federal inspector general has already confirmed are subject to FOIA requests."

Dr. Rebane, a most thoughtful post. I will leave politics aside and say the 3rd lie is the most common as you note. I call it the lie of omission. Example: a man and women meet at a hotel to have an affair. The man runs into and old high school buddy he hasn't seen in decades as the woman approaches. The old buddy sees the woman as asks "are you married?" They respond "Yes!" The lie of omission is they are married, but not to each other. Other lies common to blogs is when a poster claiming to be helpful or simply sharing infor is in reality using that as an excuse (lie) to disguise the real purpose of putting another down, name calling, or displaying his feeling of superiority. In the financial circles, people proclaim the banks aren't lending. That is true. But, the lie of omission is banks are not lending like they USED to do because they are building up reserves to protect against the bad loans they are holding on the books. Seeing the whole picture (the forest from the trees if you will) is a difficult task at best and each one's reality is different. However, we know what a lie is. The most difficult lie to overcome is the ones we repeat over and over to ourselves by minimizing our faults and exaggerating the faults of others to make ourselves look better until we actually believe our own BS. I will leave you with another story: A boxer is getting pummeled in the ring, round after round. His corner man keeps telling him he is doing great and has the other boxer on the ropes between each round. Finally the boxer replies "Well, somebody better watch the referee cause I'm getting the stew beat out of me.

I love this post. I've never told my kids that they should always tell the truth because I expect them to manipulate reality from time to time. I insist that they don't use lies for personal gain or maliciously, and (so far as I can tell) they don't.
Would that adults could draw those lines and have the will to be bound by them.

Do you recall how we got in to the Viet Nam war, it was a lie about North Viet Nam attacking one of our Navy ships. A lie that Johnson used to push us in to the war. Do you remember it was the Democrats that got us in the war and Nixon that got us out. A lie got us in and the truth got us out.

As for Bush and WMDs, it was clear from the intelligence collected after the fall of Bagdad that Saddam Hussein wanted the world to think that he had WMDs, having used them effectively in the past, he promoted that credible lie. The Brits and French bought into Saddam's lie, as did the US intelligence community. It was not Bush's lie, it was Hussein lie that got us in to that war. You need to keep your facts straight and stop blaming Bush for every thing. Did he make mistakes, yes! But, he did not lie about the WMDs, he and the intelligence community were sure he had them and the capacity to produce more. Why, because Hussain lied.

OMG, still screaming about WMD? Read the released Hussein interviews. He claimed he purposely created the illusion that he had WMD to keep Iran off balance. Saddam feared Iran more than anything else as a real threat to Iraq, not the impotent UN or even the US flyovers. That's why the Russian, French, and Israeli intelligence all came to same conclusion. That lie cost Hussein his head. Maybe I will find a bumper sticker at a flea market that reads Bush Lied People Died. Collector's item to throw in the shoebox along with my "I Smoked But Didn't Inhale" button. Geez, it like telling little Johnnie to do the chores and he angrily asks "What does Ricky have to do?" People get so thin skinned and so butt hurt they keep deflecting the topic at hand, running to Daddy crying "Johnnie called me dumb"...."Daddy, Ricky said I am dumber!" Daddy says clean your room and don't worry about Ricky.

History has shown that Bush's nest of neocons wanted a war with Iraq and seized on the unverified intelligence that Saddam had WMD's as an excuse for war. Do any of you participating in this blog actually believe that WMD's were the true reason for war? Of course the true reason was strategic resources so WMD's were a lie to the American people to justify

Bill

Are you saying that we should accept foreign intelligence as a factual justification for war?

Which is it the Type 2 - Opportunistic Lie or the Type 3 - Veiled Opportunistic Lie ?

Yes indeed Russ. Johnson lied to justify the Viet Nam War and should have been arrested and tried for treason.

Can you give a little more historical detail on the "nest of neocons" that wanted a war with IRAQ. As I recall we were at war in Iraq since 1991, flying exclusion zones with out fighters, who were being shot at by Hussain's missiles. While one may think of the second Iraq invasion as a second war, it was really the extension of the 1991 war, which Husain started with his invasion of Kuwait.

When I was in Air Command and Staff College, in 1972-73 we spent a lot of time discussing the strategic importance of the whole Gulf Region and Straights of Hormuz. We knew then that was the next flash point for America's interests. When Washington made the decision to use other people's oil before we used out own resources, it was clear to those in attendance that we would someday be at war in the Gulf. It was going to happen and it did. Bush's fault. No, Washington's fault. The Legislative and Executive Branches fault when they refused to craft and effective energy policy. If you do not know were you are going in the dark, you can stumble into all kinds of crap. The Gulf War was going to happen, it just happened on Bush's watch. Could have been Clinton's watch.

Liar, liar, pants on fire. Don't forget the yellow journalism of Hearst that got us in the Spanish American War. Hang em high on the tree of woe and take away their pension! Walt, the court case you mentioned (people claiming to earn military medals they did not earn) was declared lawful because it wasn't hurting anybody. To me, that is a lie. Those that say they never hurt anybody but themselves have not examined their own lives. The reason I no longer take strays in(the human kind) is because of the chaos and turmoil they create. No, they did not purposely lie to me with "it will be just for a couple of days" or steal from me. Not intentionally, but they stole my trust and made me less likely to help the next bum. I know a wack job who always claims his problems are due to what he saw in the war (Iraq) and often cries over his killed in action buddies and rails that Obama is cutting his VA benefits. Felt sorry for him and loaned him a twenty or two...strike that...gave him a 20 or two when if became apparent it was just the price of tuition of Life Experience. Come to find out that he got the boot in boot camp for striking a superior and never spent more than a couple weeks in the military. Should have known when he never asked for a ride to the VA hospital when his medical problems arose (first he said he had AIDS, then bone cancer, and then...hey, got any money). He may boast about his military heroics till the cows come home, free speech and all. But the hurt, worry, grief and fear he leaves every one of his family members borders on malice to be kind. Sure like this topic. Just don't yell FIRE in a crowded movie theater or lie to achieve financial gain. They call that fraud.

Mr. Steele: "if you do not know were you are going in the dark, you can stumble into all kinds of crap." LOL, good one. That is why I have always envied Columbus. He did not know where he was going, did not know where he was when he got there, but at least he convinced a woman to pay for it all. Long live Queen Isabel! Gotta admire his style.

Golly, it is now common knowledge that FDR cut off oil deliveries and threatened other resources from being delivered to Japan and their response was a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. So, I would guess PaulE would be railing against FDR? (50 million dead worldwide) Naw, he is a hero to PaulE. If you cut off or threaten to cut off a country's life blood, perhaps that country might object? My guess is PaulE is also mad the A-bombs were dropped too?

PaulE 549am - Other than the circumstantial fact that US uses a lot of energy (and has possibly world's largest reserves), what do you consider to be the most compelling evidence that Bush purposely got us into the mid-east conflicts? How did 9/11 factor into all this?

My My Todd. Where are you going with this. I just asked a simple question. Were the statements that WMD's were a justification for war the real reason we invaded Iraq? If not were the American people deceived by some kind of lie about the true reason. It's pretty simple really. You can do it. Yes or no.

George, you can't possibly believe that 9/11 was the true reason we invaded Iraq? I'd be very surprised if you did. Of course it was strategic resources and location. All I'm saying is he was lying to the American people about WMD's being the reason for war. If they would have told the Congress and the American people that we need to invade Iraq because of oil and the strategic location of Iraq they would have been honest but instead they concocted the WMD story as a scare tactic to gain support. I'm specifically referring th the invasion of the sovereign country of Iraq not other Mideastern engagements.

There are so many examples of how evidense about WMD's was contrived I don't know where to start. Let's start here with "Curveball" who admitted lying about WMD's and was shocked to find his lies being used as evidence.

Here's the 60 minutes piece on "Curveball" This is just a start. I can give you more and more examples of the lies used to justify war which I believe was intentional and treasonous.

In an interview for the UK's Guardian newspaper, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball, said he had to do something to bring democracy to Iraq.

He said Iraq had mobile biological weapons and clandestine factories.

His false evidence was used by the then US Secretary of State Colin Powell in a key speech to the UN in February 2003.

Mr Janabi told The Guardian he was "shocked" by Mr Powell's speech......BBC security correspondent Gordon Correra says that, whatever the truth of his motivations, his admission is deeply embarrassing for German, American and British intelligence agencies which all failed to understand for many years that he was lying.
"

Paul, I recall even DiFi being against an invasion of Iraq because of possible WMDs being used against our troops, and the specter of WMDs were just one of a handful of justifications for the resumption of fighting. The one I liked the best was the fact that Iraq never fulfilled their pledges under the cease fire agreement, which made that contract null and void.

We never should have let Bush take us into Iraq, and I'm talking about George H.W. Bush, not Jr. The second mistake made by HW was not finishing the job he started and letting the UN, so easily corrupted with massive fraud in the Oil For Palaces debacle, take over.

Rumsfeld himself makes it pretty cler WMD's were the main reason for going to war. Do you thing Congress and the American people would have accepted the real reason for war, securing strategic resources?

This is from Rumsfelds memoirs. He states that Bush told him to "be creative" in finding a justification for war. That they were for sure.

"Fifteen days after the attacks, the president called Rumsfeld to the Oval Office and ordered a review and revision of war plans–for Iraq. The Times quotes Rumsfeld as writing, “Two weeks after the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history, those of us in the Department of Defense were fully occupied,” Mr. Rumsfeld recalls. But the president insisted on new military plans for Iraq, Mr. Rumsfeld writes. “He wanted the options to be ‘creative.’”

"“Well, first of all, there were a variety of reasons for the war, not simply WMD,” Rumsfeld replied. “If you looked at the resolution from the Congress, there were multiple reasons, and if you looked at the UN resolution, there were multiple reasons so it wasn’t a sole reason.”

Yes I believed that WMD's were a major reason for the war. As well as the Iraqi snubs on the resolutions. There are more.

I went to the last link you supplied on Rumsfeld (I find it fascinating you lefty's hated him so much and never believed anything he said, now you use him for your own mantra's) and there is a a link that states " WMD's weren't the only reason for war with Iraq". I clicked and it took me to a headline that said WMD's was the big issue", so which is it. CNN is doing the ropa-dope and you fell for it because it fits your paranoia.

We have another example of lies today. On towntalk live, "someone" tried to say IMM was slammed by the CSE. (Canadian securities exchange)
". Follks need to see that Emgold was just wacked by the Canadian SEC for making false statments about the potential, estimated amount of reserves in the IMM. "
Then goes on to take a bit of their disclaimer out of context.

PaulE - "So we went to war on a false assumption." Not sure if I'm correctly following the reasoning in this thread, but did we dispense with 'Bush lying about WMDs' already? Is your current accusation that 1) Bush's real reason for Gulf2 was gaining control of oil, and 2) his not telling Americans about this motive thereby made the proffered WMD motive, no matter how credible at the time, a lie (Type 3 above)?

I see PaulE fails again (as he always does) to answer any question from us. He is paranoid his world view is wrecked regarding Bush and continues to make things up and parse sentences to support his distorted view of what happened. He fails to acknowledge the vote by the Congress and all his pals on the left voting for the resolution to allow force. Come on PaulE, stop being paranoid. Tell the truth man, it will set you free!

Paul, by the rules set by the UN, Iraq was *Required* to help inspectors verify the disposition of their WMDs known to exist from previous wars. They didn't, preferring to game the system, buying Security Council votes with oil vouchers kicked loose by the Oil for Food frauds and letting their neighbors think that the phantom WMDs did indeed still exist.

Paul, Pelosi had 4 years to hold hearings. Reid has had 5 and will get another. For 2 years solid left-liberal Dems controlled the House, the Senate and the Presidency. I understand your frustration, but it's rational to hold they didn't hold hearings because there really wasn't anything to be done.

Regarding Rumsfeld's memoirs, there's a difference between selling the people on a policy (aka politics) and having justifications in Constitutional and international law. Rumsfeld was talking about the first, not the second.

Had hell frozen over and Ron Paul won the election in '88 (possible only in a parallel universe), we'd not be in the situation we're in now. Mainstream Dems and R's got us where we are, little by little, in the usual bipartisan way over the past 20+ years, not just Bush & Cheney in a treasonous frenzy from 2001 to 2008.

Where did I say that? We restarted the war when it was clear the Baathists were not complying with the UN Resolutions, including the demand that Iraq help *prove* there were no WMDs. Instead, they played cat and mouse games. I recall a quote from the captive Sadaam Hussein saying he thought the US would be smart enough to figure out they didn't have active WMD's anymore despite the games.

Then there was the fact that Iraq really was in Niger looking to buy yellowcake, which, as Bush correctly stated in his State of the Union address, British intelligence believed. They still believe it.

Have you noticed there aren't nearly as many busloads of Israeli schoolchildren being turned into red goo since Iraq stopped paying the families of 'martyrs' for the deeds?

Obsessing about the path that has been taken in Iraq is political masturbation, and you'd be better off to move onto something that can actually make a difference.

If Ron Paul would have been elected President as you desired there is no way we would have been in Iraq. I have a hard time understanding what you believe in. One moment you come on like a Libertarian the next a Republican loyalist.

According to Rumsfeld WMD's were the big reason we went to war in Iraq.

“But it was the big one,” Crowley observed.

“No question it was the big one,” Rumsfeld agreed.

What do we have intelligence for anyway? There are many from the CIA that have spoken up that the books were cooked in the lead up to war.

No. we would not have invaded Iraq if Gore would have been elected President.

But, of course, they were wrong. Blair was ludicrous with his famous "half hour mushroom cloud" scare tactic. It is the responsibility of the President to provide for the security of our country by using reliable intelligence as a factual source to make decisions that afect our security. In this case he wanted to go to war with Iraq and cooked the books to come up with a reason. You refuse to look at all the evidence that supports that because you're a hopeless Republican patriot not a free thinking individual. Look at the story of "Curveball", an informant that outright lied about WMD's and later found his lies accepted as truth word for word with no vetting by the CIA. Also Cheney's unprecedented scouting expeditions to the CIA looking for whatever he could find to boost the case for war.

Here's more on Curveball from Colin Powell

"In a statement to CNN, Powell said it had become clear over the years that "Curveball," whose real name is Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, was "totally unreliable." He went on to note, "The question should be put to the CIA and the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) as to why this wasn't known before the false information was put into [a key intelligence estimate] sent to Congress, the president's State of the Union address and my Feb. 5 presentation to the U.N."

"WASHINGTON, April 26 — George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a “serious debate” about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States."

Communists moles infiltrated the US government decades ago and bent the truth about the Gulf of Tonkin incident and, later, WMD, reasoning that the Commies might be able to bring down the US government by getting us into a string of protracted wars half a world away and running our country into the financial gutter - at least that is the premise of my new docu-novella, "Red Dog Road".

That's good ironic speculation Brad. Yes indeed, the war in Iraq was a dream come true for the Islamic radicals and Iranian nationalists both of which have expanded mightily because of this massive error in foreign policy.

Todd

What was "wrong" about what I offered? I gave you quotes from Bush's own people. It's just the tip of the iceberg. Are you one of those that believes the WMD's existed and were smuggled out of the country?

There you go again! "Reliable intelligence" is exactly what we didn't have, and that is the usual state of affairs. Paul, Tenet (who was a Clinton appointee) is the guy who told Bush the WMD's were a "slam dunk" when GW seemed shocked by how thin the evidence was. He is the Bad Intelligence Personified who was pissed at Cheney giving him the finger.

"To summarize, then: In February 1999 one of Saddam Hussein's chief nuclear goons paid a visit to Niger, but his identity was not noticed by Joseph Wilson, nor emphasized in his "report" to the CIA, nor mentioned at all in his later memoir. British intelligence picked up the news of the Zahawie visit from French and Italian sources and passed it on to Washington."http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2006/07/case_closed.html

Really Bad Intelligence is what you get when a political hack like Joseph Wilson goes to Niger to sip coffee with his hosts who tell him, no, Iraq's primary nuclear diplomat didn't inquire about our only valuable commodity, uranium yellowcake, when he was here.

I'm never surprised when leftist climate alarmists wrap themselves in the flag of the precautionary principle when groupthink bad science demands sacrifice, but throw that out the window expecting espionage, which is always mixed with guesswork, to be scientific.

Bush I shouldn't have inserted US forces into the Middle East. Once that mistake was made, the job should have been finished rather than left to fester. Clinton shouldn't have let it fester with the Oil for Food & Palaces program frauds compromising the integrity (such as it is) of the UN. Your problem, Paul, is that you're making judgments based entirely on 20-20 hindsight. I'm a libertarian through and through, but the Constitution isn't a suicide pact and mistakes will always be made.

Whether or not a President Al Gore would have grown a pair had he been the one told by Tenet that WMD's were a slam dunk is a question we'll just have to disagree on.

Paul, you're trying to change the subject. Do you concede Bush was rational, based on the information provided by Tenet at the CIA, to act as if the WMD existed? What does the "precautionary principle" tell us in this case?

You completely ignore the rather detailed examples I gave about the manipulation of information to create a scenario for war. Of course there is also the famous note from the Project for the New American Century that had Rumsfeldt, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Donalt Feith and others from the Bush Admin as founding members stating the wish to

"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor"

9/11 fulfilled that promise and the rest is history.

PNAC members used the events of 9/11 as the "Pearl Harbor" that they needed––that is, as an "opportunity" to "capitalize on" in order to enact long-desired plans.

PaulE, GregG and others have effectively presented counters to your points which bring forth the complexity of what was known/believed by whom and when. Your entire facade rests on the existence of a conspiratorial objective of launching a comprehensive American takeover of mid-east energy reserves through war. There is no evidence that such an objective ever existed, and the resulting mess we have made there does not support the pre-existence of that objective through both Repub and Dem administrations. Absent the evidence, it is natural for the left to selectively fit together pieces that support the thesis of (rightwing) conspiracy and lies.

Even a casual read of the PNAC credo that I presented shows that this was indeed the case. I'm surprised you didn't read it before you made that summary. And of course there was Iran in 1952, another graphic example of Western Imperialism. Are you denying the influence of the members of the PNAC in foreign policy?

George, there was no talking any sense into the Vince Foster conspiracy types, either.

Paul, you were the one who dredged up George Tenet as a trusted voice of the Republican persuasion, who in actuality was a Democrat and an appointee of Bill Clinton, and the one who convinced Bush to make the WMD push.

We're interested in the Middle East because of oil? Say something else obvious and universally understood. However, the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 was passed in the House 360-38 (Pelosi didn't vote, Kucinich voted yes, Paul voted no), passed the Senate by unanimous consent (et tu, Ted Kennedy, Paul Wellstone and Harry Reid?) two days later and then signed by Bill Clinton. It was not a neocon plot. That neocons wanted it too is nothing astonishing.

PaulE 323pm - no denying of PNAC influence, just don't see the conspiracy that your argument requires. The imputed war clouds were blown up by all parties in Washington (as GregG has documented), it was 9/11 that caused Bush2 to pull the trigger. The wisdom of subsequent execution is a separate issue.

I was pouring a bowl of Post Blueberry Morning cereal and thought to check out the fine print. The 'blueberries' are actually (excuse me while I fumble with my magnifying glass) Invert sugar, Glycerol, Safflower oil, Citric acid, Natural flavors, and Potassium sorbate (as a preservative).

I suppose Post is actually guilty of a half-truth rather than a lie. After all, the little chumks ARE blue!

Yes Bob, but the blue "little chunks" are no more berries than are those little chunks that are euphemistically called dingle berries. It's a full-fledged lie, you should report them, and feel free to use my illustration to lock in your complaint.

MIAMI (AP) — Florida's freshman U.S. senator and rising GOP star Marco Rubio is fighting back against allegations he embellished his family's history by saying his parents were Cuban exiles.

Rubio's Senate website says his parents came to America following Fidel Castro's 1959 takeover, and he has always publicly identified with the exile community. In turn he has maintained a strong and loyal political following within its Miami hub.

But reports Thursday by the St. Petersburg Times and The Washington Post revealed his parents emigrated to the U.S. in 1956, when Cuban dictator Fulgencia Batista was still in power and Fidel Castro had just been released from prison and exiled in Mexico.